Learn to Love Again
by Till-I-Met-U
Summary: "I was too young to know how to love her". Paige and Emily. One-shot. AU. PAILY.


Summary: "I was too young to know how to love her". Paige and Emily. One-shot. AU. PAILY.

Disclaimer: I do not own Pretty Little Liars; if I just own it Paige and Emily will have at least three kids and two cats by now, and Paily will have all the screen time; and other literature quotes that are used in this story.

A/N: So, Hello guys! I just want to thank everyone who review, favorite and follow my other two stories, all is appreciated, thank you, thank you very much.

To the guest who review and read my story at 2 in the morning, thank you so much.

So here is another one-shot for all the Paily fans out there, tell me guys what you think.

Some lines are from my favourite literature books, so if you recognized some of them please let me know.

Sorry for the grammar mistakes and some errors.

* * *

Learn to Love Again

The sad moment is when Emily is sitting at the brew with her friends around her, five years later after Paige left, is that she had realized that she forgotten the darkness of Paige's brown eyes, the color of her hair and even the depth of her laugh, all of that have faded into the back of her mind, into the deepest part of her heart, where promises, scholarships, swimming, and forever and happy endings are lost forever like how the deaf can't hear the beauty of music, or how the blind can't know the color blue.

Don't get her wrong, she love Paige with all that she is, but I love you's with her seems to have passed.

As much as she wished for a reason she could understand on why Paige has left her, it would never come.

Does Paige love her because she needs her, or because she needed her so she loved her?

Emily shakes her head, if there is one thing in this world she is most certain with, is that Paige have loved her truthfully and wholly. Emily's love for Paige can never also be questioned, Paige is the only person she have loved more than anything in the world, she may have loved Alison and Maya, but Paige is the only person she always goes back to, the only person she have loved and loved her back so much, despite of all the things she done to her, she always accepts Emily every time she comes back to her.

Paige may not be her first love, her first kiss, her soul mate, but all of that is what she is to Paige, so in return she knew in her heart that Paige is her one true love, the person who she will always love the most.

Emily feels like when Paige has left there's been a stone put in her heart that is so big and heavy that there is nothing she could have done. She have cried and cried that day Paige have left her in that airport, and choose to abandon herself to her own sadness, for Paige has left her and she was alone.

She still remember what Hanna told her on the day she promised herself she would never love again, for love just brings sadness and pain, "Emily, love is not a fairy tale, you can't be Sleeping Beauty and just woke up again at the magic kiss of the one who will love you just as much as Paige did."

And Emily feels like she have died when she heard the news of Paige transferring to London just when she have received the acceptance letter from Stanford, she remember calling Paige that night telling her "Don't go where I cannot follow", but Paige just sigh and told her that if they are meant to be, they will be, Emily feels like she was trapped in a small space with a big weight holding her down for all eternity, just waiting for her to die.

And when she talked to Spencer that morning she just hugged her and told her "the trouble with miracle is, they don't last long."

So when she have read the highlighted sentence in the book Aria lend her, The Once and Future King, she is ready to move on.

Paige has waited for her, and she has waited for Paige, and they both wanted what they couldn't have.

So when Hanna asked her what she feels after zoning out in their conversation, she just told her while chuckling "I am both happy and sad, and I'm still trying to figure out how could that be."

And when three set of concerned eyes looked at her, because of course, they hear the sadness in her voice, so she just looked down and said "I was too young to know how to love her", and the three girls just enveloped her in a big hug.

And even though Emily Fields is slowly forgetting how Paige might have look now, she still can feel her soft touches and her warmth, like how you supposed to feel the wind and not see it, like how you can still smell the person you love in everything she owns that you still have, even though five years have passed.

"You know a heart can be broken, but it keeps on beating just the same", is what she told her mom, while they are having dinner, when she asked her how she is.

And when Emily Fields finally love again, she knew just to love a little bit, so when they broke again her heart, and leave her again, that maybe, she will still have a little love left over for the next one.

So when her new relationship ended again after 6 months of dating, she moved on pretty quickly, maybe because this time, she didn't gave her all, because in the back of her mind she knows she can't, and maybe that is the reason she can't make a girl stay, she can't still bring herself to love another girl completely.

When Coach Fulton finally retired and offered her to take her job, she said yes even though it hurts her more than anything to be back in Rosewood especially the pool where it hold so much good memories of her and Paige, she can still feel her presence in the locker room, the ghost of their kisses is still hunting her when she looked at the showers, and she still let a tear or two to drop every time she went swimming at night, their laugh still echoing inside the natatorium that time they almost got caught by the guard, she can still see Paige sitting beside the pool, dangling her feet in the water, laughing at what Emily just said, she smiled at the memory, after all these years she still love Paige she thought. She sat at the bleachers, watching how the water reflects the moon light; she grieves what she and Paige will never have, and cherished the moments they shared, good and bad. She closed her eyes and prays for one more kiss, one more hug, and one more chance.

She have love Paige for as long as she can remember, she have love her before she even knew it, and she is ready to wait for Paige until the day they will meet again, hopefully that will be the day Emily will learn to completely love again, but Emily knew for herself that she can't go on like this forever, she was tired in her bones, and now, after all these years later, it seemed to her that the most horrible fact of human existence was that broken hearts mended.

And as late Emily finally accepted the fact that Paige will never come back, she get it. She can't choose what she want and don't want; she doesn't know she existed until she was ripped from Paige's heart. She thought that she can't probably spent another five years like that, waiting and sulking, and thinking of all the what if's, wallowing in her own self-pity, pining after someone who left her long ago.

* * *

It was a month after Emily finally left Rosewood when Paige McCullers came back, but instead of finding Emily, she found out that after five long years of waiting Emily finally accepted the fact that Paige will never come and moved away to another country.

Two days later when she moved back again in Rosewood, accepting the coaching job Emily had left, and the school offered to her, none of them questioning her motives.

Paige never forgot Emily, although it seems to it that way, she never spent a single day not thinking about her, no one can ever quite took Emily's place in her heart.

* * *

On some days, Paige still cries, tears of sorrow, of regret, she's still crying for a lost love, angry and desperate because Emily wasn't there, wasn't where she have left her. All she could hope is that Emily will come back to her someday. She's still quietly, silently, hoping Emily will end up with her. No matter how long she would wait, Emily waited for her long enough, now its Paige time to do the same, until Emily is ready, until she comes back.

"You came back for her, don't you?" Spencer asked her one day when they are drinking coffee at The Brew.

Paige just nods and tells her "I know so many last words…but, I will never know hers".

Paige gave Emily her heart, and Emily take it with her to a place no one in Rosewood know, and if Emily never comes back Paige will spend the rest of her life with a hole inside her heart that no one can fill.

"You can love someone so much.., but…, you can never love people as much as you miss them," Spencer truthfully told her.

"I was too young to know how to love her", Paige sadly told her, Spencer just looked sympathetically at Paige, and she have heard this exact reason before.

* * *

Paige often spend her day sitting alone on the bleachers, much the same Emily always had, staring at the calmness of the pool, reminiscing her and Emily's time together.

Sometimes she ate her lunch beside the pool, dangling her feet on the water; she stared at the pool without seeing, the ghost of Emily's laugh and smile still haunting her mind.

Paige have lose Emily in pieces over a long time- the way Emily's voicemail stops coming, and her scents fades from the pillows and even from Emily's clothes in her closet and drawers, Paige doesn't lose Emily all at once, she lost her little by little over the last five years, there was an empty place within her where her heart once was, and her tears came before she can stop them, she let them fall, and finally she stopped pretending.

* * *

The day Emily finally came back, three years later, wasn't anything special, it is a too-warm day in the middle of July, she still looked the same, dressed the same, but is smiling much often now, and she is on her way to The Brew to grab a cup of coffee.

She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Paige at the door, just leaving The Brew, two coffees in hand, she was sure that the two of them were holding their breath at that very moment.

It seems like an eternity when Paige finally take a few steps closer to Emily, to the person she will spent forever waiting for, it looks surreal for the both of them, the two of them not believing that what's happening is real, Emily also steps closer to Paige, to the person she spent so many sleepless nights for.

Neither one of them knew what to say, neither one of them scream at each other nor cry, neither blamed the other for so many wasted years spent apart, they just talked calmly, occasionally smiling at each other, laughing on what funny thing the other say, they just stood there outside The Brew lost in each other presence, each of them memorizing how each other looked but neither one of them dared to touch or kiss one another.

They talked more for a few minutes when Paige gestured to the coffees, turned her back to Emily and walked away, while Emily walked inside the brew to grab a cup of coffee, neither one of them looking back.

* * *

So when Emily and Paige walked to The Brew a month later, hand in hand, Spencer, Aria and Hanna looked and smile knowingly at each other.

At last, they finally get it right.

The End

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A/N2: I love reviews keep them coming…

Title comes from the song "Learn to Love Again" by Lawson

Have A Good day!

Paily Today, Paily Tomorrow, Paily Forever!


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